Recently elected President of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian kicked off the biannual World Congress on Information Technology, addressing an inter- national audience of delegates from 86 countries. Chen announced a new initiative, dubbed Green Silicon Island, under which the Taiwan Government aims to ensure that future generations in Taiwan will be able to reap the fruits of not only a highly developed technology sector, but also a healthy environment. During the three-day event, more than 1700 registered delegates, a mix of industry executives, academics and government officials, witnessed presentations discussing the political and social impact of IT by some of the biggest names in the business. www.worldcongress2000.org/Microsoft ups stake in Euro cable companyMicrosoft has increased its stake in Dutch cable communications vendor United Pan-Europe Communications NV (UPC), now owning 8 per cent of the company.

The US software giant agreed to exercise warrants held in UPC to buy 5.7 million shares at a cost of $US9.3 per share for a total value of $53.2 million, the company stated. The warrants, part of a technology relationship agreement between Microsoft and UPC, became exercisable in February.

Microsoft's stake in UPC was previously around the 7 per cent mark. Based in Amsterdam, UPC offers cable television, telephony, high-speed Net access and programming services across 18 countries including Israel.

Funnel Web Enterprise captures top awardActive Concepts' Web Intelligence tool, Funnel Web Enterprise, targeted at medium-to-large corporate Web sites, VPNs and ISPs, has been nominated as one of the top new software titles by resellers at the Gartner VARVision event in the US. In a statement relating to the nomination, Active Concepts said it had evaluated and developed a new support program specifically for resellers and distributors. It includes customised certification training programs for resellers, and co-marketing programs such as events, mailings and advertising initiatives. Funnel Web Enterprise allows streaming media and cluster analysis, unlimited virtual domains, clickstream and advertising analysis, PDF output, multi-site log retrieval, and incremental analysis. www.activeconcepts.com

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